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Ze Tools

PAGE 7: MORE STUFF TO GET INTO TROUBLE WITH

Project #1 TDI MKII

12-23-2005

More Progress:

Pulled the master cylinder and brake booster to put in the hydraulic clutch support bracket. Those grommets on the right of the big hole are where it all goes.


Ze bracket......Oriented as though you're looking at it from inside the car.


Same grommets from inside the car. Just up to the right of the little rightmost grommet is where the hole for the bracket stud will go into the firewall. To measure, I bolted in the pedal cluster marked the spot where the hole is in the pedal cluster.


Bracket mounted from outside. I have to get a hole cutter to cut the hole for the clutch master cylinder (smaller hole on the right)


Next steps (not like anybody's ever seen a similar picture to this before...). The plan is to fabricate a plate of similar width to the old shiftbox and the same length as the new one. Then I'll cut the top piece off the old one and mount it up as a gasket to the new one. Not surprisingly, both the shifters are the same height from base to top of stick.


Another picture of the underside of the exhaust tunnel where the shifter was.


1-03-2006

A little update. I've got a whole bunch of other pics, but here's the basic gist of the idea. Putting a New Beetle Cluster into the MKII dash. I spent a lot of time humming and hawing over how to proceed with this one, but ended up deciding to make the stock opening larger to accomodate more of the NB cluster.

I just realized I haven't gone to sleep and I need to work today. Crap!

1-06-2006

I'll be picking up a starter in a week or so. That's the last thing I need before I can mount the engine and start working on the electrical, seeing as the front mount bolts through the starter, tranny flange, and block.

I have a really good idea what I want to do for the dash cluster (I'll try to 3dsMax it tonight. Really rusty with that). It's essentially what you see in that pic above, but it will be all custom. I've gathered all the necessary measurements, but essentially, it will be the same square shape on the sides, but will have protrusions in the center to allow the full beetle cluster to be seen.

I'm going to fab up a custom dash trim that mimics this shape as well, seeing as the old one is square and would just serve to obscure the work I've done.

I still have to get to the cable shift. I am going to cut the old rod shift box and use the top of it as a glorified gasket to space the cable shift from the tunnel.

It's going pretty slow right now. I need time for my wallet to heal from Christmas.

......later that day, after a lengthy nap.....

OK, so here's what I was originally working with. This is the CWSTuning NB cluster that Cam fit into the MKII dash. Notice how it loses a lot of the visibility of the top of the cluster? In that space is the High-beam indicator and the signal indicators on either side of that.

CWSTuning TDI Project Cluster

It's kinda tough to fit the NB cluster into the spot, because it's shaped like a fat crescent with the 2 points facing down. That's why Cam's above has part of the fuel indicator and RPM guage obscured. If you look really close, it looks like Cam customized the upper bezel to accomodate part of that. Unfortunately, if you're not really short (I'm 6'2"), you don't get to see that part.

What I'm going to fab up is going to allow you to see the remainder of the cluster. What it entails is creating the left and right sides that mount to the stock locations, then making a bubble on the top of it, and the 2 points on the bottom (I might just do what Cam did to save the headache with the bezel).

I've done the measurement of the curve of the glass. I can accomodate the 2 cm above and the 1.75 cm below the stock glass without much issue. There is clearance in the dash to allow a slightly larger profile of cluster, but as mentioned before, I'll have to echo the shape of the NB cluster in the plastic bezel surrounding it to allow all of it to be seen.

The front of the bottom part of the bezel will start flat, then morph into the shape of the cluster at the back. It will also dip down to accomodate the additional space requirement.

The top of the bezel (both front and back) will simply have the little bump to accomodate the additional room required for the top of the cluster to be visible.

No luck with 3dsmax last night. Since it's the weekend, I'll see what I can do for visual reference.


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